| The 100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years |
Rolling Stone, September 8, 1988, Issue 534 #37: Innervisions Stevie Wonder During the crippling energy crisis of the early Seventies, Stevie Wonder remained one of pop music's few dependable natural resources. And Innervisions, following hot on the heels of the breakthrough Talking Book may well represent Stevie's creative peak. Merely reading the album credits is staggering. Wonder is the sole producer, arranger and composer; he sings virtually all parts and plays almost every instrument. The hits "Living for the City" and "Higher Ground," for instance, are all Stevie. Amazingly, he does everything well; the music is groundbreaking, the singing revelatory, the lyrics visionary. Perhaps more than any other artist, Stevie Wonder humanized synthesizers; rather than creating a high-tech sideshow, he used that bubbling array of electronic sounds in the service of melody. "For the most part I've listened to just what's in my head," he said in a 1973 Rolling Stone interview, "plus Bob Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil. ... They are responsible for [synthesizer] programming, and I just tell them the kind of sound that I want." Wonder had begun working with Margouleff and Cecil in 1971 after hearing Zero Time, an album they had done under the name Tonto's Expanding Head Band. Critic Nelson George reports in Where Did Our Love Go? -- his history of Motown -- that Stevie and the two synth wizards went on to record the backbone of four very successful albums (Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale) over the course of the following year. Not that Wonder's genius was bounded by the studio. "His concern with the real world is all-encompassing," Lenny Kaye wrote of Stevie Wonder in Rolling Stone's original review of Innervisions, "a fact which his blindness has apparently complemented rather than denied." Just as "Living in the City" detailed a harsh reality, "Higher Ground" pointed toward a spiritual solution. "All in Love Is Fair" is a tasteful, tart ballad. Innervisions closes with two soaring, largely acoustic numbers: one offers a Zen-like reassurance ("Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing"); the other, a pithy reminder of ego's pitfalls ("He's Misstra Know-It-All"). That combination of spirituality, street sense and sonic innovation has yet to be equaled. #64: Talking Book Stevie
Wonder Stevie Wonder produced 'Talking Book' during a period of intense creativity, and it proved to be his breakthrough to fully realized artistic maturity. It was Wonder's second LP release in 1972, and its success was the fruit of both the daring musical expansion he had demonstrated on Music of My Mind earlier in the year and of the battle for artistic freedom he had fought and won with Motown Records in the wake of Marvin Gaye's pioneering What's Going On. After turning twenty-one in 1971, Wonder signed the most lucrative contract in the history of Motown -- one that guaranteed him complete artistic control of his records. He then released Music of My Mind, on which he collaborated with Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, otherwise known as Tonto's Expanding Head Band. Cecil and Margouleff's album Zero Time had excited Wonder's interest in synthesizer technology. The two also served as associate producers on Talking Book, but by the time he recorded but by the time he recorded that album, Wonder was able to absorb their influences more seamlessly than he had on Music of My Mind. Lurking in the background of Talking Book is the breakup of Wonder's marriage to Syreeta Wright. Songs like "Tuesday Heartbreak," "Maybe Your Baby," and "Blame It on the Sun," are laden with regret and jealousy, while "You and I (We Can Conquer the World)," "Lookin' for Another Pure Love," "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)" and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" gamely imagine a world in which love is attainable, transforming and lasting. But the album's high point is "Superstition," which went to Number One on the strength of its bruising R&B groove and cutting lyrics. Wonder originally wrote the song for guitarist Jeff Beck (who also plays on "Lookin' for Another Pure Love") but released it as a single himself at Motown's urging -- to Beck's considerable dismay. "Altogether, an exceptional, exciting album, the work of a now quite matured genius," concluded critic Vince Aletti in Rolling Stone when Talking Book came out, and his words have held up as well as the record he so accurately praised. #73: Superstition Stevie Wonder "It started off with the drums," says Stevie Wonder. "Then the cymbal. And sitting in Electric Lady studio, doing the drums and humming the melody to myself. Then pulling the clavinet on top of that and then putting the Moog synthesizer on the bass." He makes it sound so easy. But in 1972, when twenty-two-year-old Stevie Wonder cut "Superstition," he was at a career crossroads. Little Stevie Wonder, who was born blind, had been signed to Motown at age eleven and soon had his first Number One record with "Fingertips (Part 2)." Many hits followed, but Wonder's genius was chomping at the bit. When he turned twenty-one, he broke Motown traditions by negotiating for his own publishing rights and higher royalties, establishing himself as an artist instead of a singles act. He began playing virtually all the instruments and started producing his own work (with help from synth wizzes Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff). But his first album as his own man, Music of My Mind, had yielded only one minor hit, "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)," and Wonder hadn't had a Number One record in nearly a decade. After doing some sessions with Jeff Beck, he wrote "Superstition," a funky, electrifying song, for the guitarist. But Wonder ended up finishing his album Talking Book before Beck released his version. And though Wonder wanted "Big Brother" as the first single, Motown pushed for the more dance-oriented song. Thanks in part to the exposure Wonder gained by opening for the Rolling Stones' 1972 tour, "Superstition" went to Number One - much to Beck's chagrin. But Wonder's arrangement, with its sure-footed, thumping drum part, punchy horn parts and mesmerizing vocal, established him as an arranger to be reckoned with. Wonder says the lyrics came from his sense that "people do believe in things that they don't understand, and they suffer. If you're feeling low and you come to a conclusion based on whatever someone else says, it gets kind of hairy. Basically, I was just saying superstition ain't the way." Songwriter and Producer: Stevie Wonder.
|